Friday, May 9, 2008

A study by a researcher Montreal has confirmed that prolonged breastfeeding promotes cognitive development and intelligence of children.

The work of Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal, confirmed that and in his study, the largest ever conducted on the subject, concludes that breastfeeding produces a higher intelligence quotient of children and improving their academic performance, said a press release from McGill University.

"Our study is the most blatant evidence to date that prolonged breastfeeding and exclusive makes children more intelligent," said Dr. Kramer, professor of pediatrics, epidemiology and biostatistics at the Faculty of Medicine McGill University.Some 14,000 children were followed for six and a half years in a thirty hospitals and clinics of Belarus, for this study whose findings are published in the latest issue of the American journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Half of the mothers had been exposed to a program to encourage breastfeeding. The others have continued to receive post-natal usual. This method has allowed, according to researchers, assessing the effects of breastfeeding on children's development, but the results are affected by factors such as level of intelligence of the mother or his interaction with the infant.

The children's cognitive development was measured by means of intelligence tests carried out by their pediatricians and then by scores of teachers on their academic capabilities. The results in both cases were best in the group randomly selected to be offered a promotion of reastfeeding. The link between breastfeeding and intelligence is a much-debated topic, recognizes Dr. Kramer. But he argued that the majority of studies hitherto associations, while the randomness of it establishes a causal link between breastfeeding and intelligence.